


A Day

by DessArtem



Series: Broken Pieces [5]
Category: The LEGO Movie (2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Gen, Non-Consensual Drug Use, attempted suicide by cop, mild violence, robot limbs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-09
Updated: 2015-02-09
Packaged: 2018-03-11 07:40:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3319445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DessArtem/pseuds/DessArtem
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cleversnail gave me the prompt: A typical day for GCBC while they were employed by Lord Business. So, here it is!</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Day

**Author's Note:**

> So many italics! I hope it's clear that when their dialogue is in italics, it means they're speaking to each other in their head and not out loud.

5am: Wake up

“ _I SWEAR, IF I HAVE TO HEAR THAT SONG ONE MORE TIME-_ ”

“ _You’ll do what exactly?_ ” Good sat them up, wavering a bit from their combined sleepiness. He could feel Bad groan and try to pull them back under, but he was much better at fighting that urge. “ _Storm the radio room?_ ”

“ _Maybe,_ ” Bad replied, but his heart wasn’t in it. He was usually just a vibrating ball of grumpiness at the back of their head in the mornings, though he did growl and sometimes mutter when he found something annoying, usually their alarm clock. He didn’t put much effort into it, though.

Good hummed cheerily as he slid out of bed and onto the wheeled stool he’d put nearby the night before. They’d taken to sleeping without the metal leg when they noticed the skin under it was getting sore and itchy from wearing it nonstop. Grinning slightly, he lined up his trajectory before strongly pushing off the side of the bed, sending them zooming backwards across the linoleum floor and toward the bathroom. It was a fair distance and they hit a pretty good speed, to his delight.

“ _Careful!_ ” his brother snapped when the wheels of the stool hit the raised threshold in the doorway and sent them toppling to the bathroom floor. “ _Now look what yeh did._ ”

“We’re fine,” Good said as he sat up, still grinning widely from the fun.

“ _You almost hit our head on the toilet, moron._ ” There was a hint of worry to his voice, only cemented by him switching out for a few moments to make absolute sure Good wasn’t trying to hide pain. “Ow,” he whined softly at the bit of soreness in their arse. He pulled them to a standing position and rubbed at it before switching back in, satisfied it was nothing.

“ _It was totally worth it and you know it._ ” Good chuckled and looked in the mirror, noting the healthy flush to their cheeks from the bit of excitement. He was also reminded of the streaks of grey at their temples. “Ugh, maybe we should pick up some hair dye later,” he suggested, raising his hands to their head to smooth back their auburn hair. He wrinkled his nose when he noticed the flecks of grey throughout, not just in the two little areas at the sides. Their morning stubble was too short to tell, but he suspected it wasn’t any better.

“ _Why,_ ” Bad grunted.

“Do you not see all that grey? We’re too young to be grey! And, ugh, look at those wrinkles! And bags, dammit, bags!” He pulled lightly at the skin under their eyes. “I keep telling you to stop staying up so late working! You’re making us look like an old man!”

“ _Language._ ”

“You know mummy would agree with me.” Good pouted in the mirror at his brother.

“ _She’d also tell you to stop eating so much junk food._ You’re the one getting us fat,” Bad countered, switching out to slap the bit of paunch on their belly. “Don’t think I didn’t notice you cutting a new hole in our belt last week.” He yawned and switched back in, not liking to be out in the mornings when he could feel their body’s tiredness as well as his mind’s.

“You weren’t complaining when I got you that double-patty burger yesterday for lunch. You wolfed that thing down in three bites.” Good yawned as well and hopped over to the tub to turn on the shower. When it came to Octan’s fast food burger place, Good devoured the fries and Bad dealt with their usual craving for a burger. Their stomach growled at the thought, since enough blood flow was reaching their brain to wake their body up sooner than usual.

Bad just grunted in response, not in the mood to keep arguing. Good checked the water temperature with an elbow before getting into the shower. He could feel Bad paying close attention when he took off a hand to clean the end of their arm, but didn’t comment, since he always did that. Good thought for a moment before picking a song and humming, then singing it. He replaced that hand and took off the other, shifting carefully on the ball of their foot to rotate to stick that stump under the water.

“ _We hated that song,_ ” Bad commented after a couple minutes of Good singing whatever words of it he could recall. Bad wasn’t snapping at him or complaining, merely remembering. Bittersweet.

“Yes, I suppose we did.” Good finished lathering shampoo into their hair and stuck his head back into the spray. Neither commented further, but they were thinking the same thing.

6am: Eat a healthy breakfast

“ _No. Put that back, and get some oatmeal instead._ ”

“Pancakes, pancakes, la la la la la~” Good ignored his brother’s command as he stuck a pat of butter between the two fluffy cakes so it would melt quickly. Next, of course, came about a quarter of the bottle of maple syrup poured liberally over the top.

“ _Darnit, I said put that back! You’re going to fill up on those empty carbs and won’t eat fruit or meat or anything that’ll actually give me energy to do our job!_ ”

“Sorry, can’t hear you over the sound of pancakes!” Good put the syrup bottle back onto the transportation dumbwaiter. It was stuck in the wall in the back of their kitchenette, and all they had to do was press a button just above it and say what they wanted. A few minutes later, it would be sent to them by the chef robot, who made everything for them and, they suspected, Lord Business. He carried the plate and glass of orange juice to their bar-style counter and sat on the single stool.

“ _That’s going straight to our arse._ ”

“You’re an arse.” Good licked his lips and began cutting the pancakes into little bites so they could soak up the syrup better. “I did get orange juice,” he added just before taking a bite.

“ _Oh joy, more sugar to add to the pile of carbs and sugar and butter, you piggy. I’m going to hit a sugar crash later and it’ll be all your fault._ ”

“Oh hush, we both know you’ll just snack on beef jerky and energy drinks and be perfectly fine.”

7am: Go to work

“So, let me get this straight,” said Bad as he doodled along the edge of their notepad, “You and your wife woke up to find a suspicious person in your living room. As soon as they saw you, this suspicious person jumped out the window and drove off in a strange vehicle.” He glanced up over his aviators, stern but not quite glaring at the husband and wife before him. They were all standing in the couple’s living room, in a little house in a Bricksburg suburb.

“Yes, that’s right, officer!” said the husband, a portly couch potato kind of man, the type of husband you’d see in a typical family sitcom. “He almost made off with my prized bowling trophy!”

“I wouldn’t call it ‘prized,’ dear. That’s an eleven on the side, not a one,” drawled his thin redhead of a wife.

“Damnit, Sharon!”

“Now now, let’s stay on topic, please,” said Good after a quick switch to interrupt the feuding couple. “I just want to get the facts so I can bring this, er, ‘giant panda’ to justice.” He quickly switched back in so he wasn’t laughing in front of the citizens.

“Whatever you say, officer,” said the wife, smiling automatically.

After getting as many details about the so-called “panda” as they could, the Cops dismissed the couple into the other room so they could have a look around.

“ _Thoughts?_ ” said Bad, taking a quick turn around the living room before stopping by the single window next to the bookcase, where the citizens had seen the intruder.

“ _About the giant panda?_ ” said Good with no small amount of amusement.

“ _This wouldn’t be the first time a Master Builder wore an animal costume, or any kind of costume. Stop sniggering and either help, or stay out of the way._ ” Bad looked at the window, having not seen any obvious evidence of someone poking through the citizens’ possessions, including the bowling trophy, which was sitting on the dust-free shelf as if it had never moved. The lack of dust wasn’t a clue either, since the entire house was immaculately clean. “ _The window would be too small for an actual bear to fit through, and there’s no claw marks._ ” He pulled the window open and poked his head out, frowning behind his aviators. The window was large enough to fit an average-sized person, but not much larger than that. He and Good would be too wide to fit through if he tried, since their years of strength training had packed on the muscle.

“ _I didn’t actually think it was a real bear, dumb-dumb,_ ” chided Good with a sneering tone.

“The hedge and flowers have been trampled,” Bad said out loud, so the robot cops behind him could hear. “I see large, round footprints in the dirt. Someone send for a forensic team.” He pulled his head back in and closed the window. “We’ll go question the neighbors.”

11am: Take a lunch break

Three hours later, after questioning at every house in the cul de sac, the Cops stopped into a little sandwich shop for lunch. Bad made a face when he saw the options, since he hadn’t realized it was one of those tree-hugger vegetarian places. They were already there, and had stood in line for ten minutes, so he picked something with avocados and plenty of cheese and got a bag of barbecue-flavored potato chips to go with it. After a pause, he also grabbed a large cookie, ignoring Good’s snide comment about breakfast.

He managed to grab an empty booth just as its occupants were leaving. He adjusted their blaster so it wasn’t digging into his hip and pulled out their phone. According to the robots, the cameras had picked up some footage of a person in a panda suit coming out of that window at around four am, but hadn’t seen it anywhere since. The Master Builder and his vehicle had simply disappeared.

“ _Probably used one of their tunnels,_ ” growled Bad. He took big bites of the wrap and ate without really tasting it, focused on the phone in his hand.

“ _That far from one of the walls? Do you think they have tunnel entrances in other places?_ ”

“ _Wouldn’t surprise me. They’re probably in the ground, maybe in the roads._ ” Bad closed that report and checked to see if the forensics team had found any hair or fibers at the scene, but they hadn’t sent him anything yet.

“ _Probably not under the roads, since that’s where most of the sewer system runs,_ ” Good reminded him. They’d already checked the sewers not long after they started working for Business and had found nothing. It certainly wasn’t the type of place Master Builders would go into, even when desperate. “ _It doesn’t matter much, does it? The doors move around all the time in the walls, so probably the same everywhere else. We should focus on why the Master Builder was at that house and see if we can set a trap for him._ ”

“ _Probably not to pilfer a bowling trophy. We’ll have to go back to the house, take a closer look. And, also, we should check into the residents of the house, see if maybe they had a relation with a Master Builder that didn’t make it into Octan’s records,_ ” he added more hesitantly, since there was only one way to get that information anymore.

“ _Gotcha. Shall we “good cop” it or “bad cop” it?_ ” Good asked, trying to add a bit of humor into the uncomfortable situation.

“ _Shut up and eat your darn cookie,_ ” snapped Bad, switching somewhat pushily.

11:30am: Go back to work

Searching the house didn’t take long, since it was just big enough for two people and had neither basement or attic. They found nothing that might interest a Master Builder, as far as they knew at that point.

2pm: Work out

The park was empty and large enough that their entourage of guard robots could stand at the edges of it and be mostly unseen. The Cops could almost feel like they had privacy, if they ignored the cameras, of course. Bad changed into some sweats and a tee-shirt in the clean public bathroom. He chose a spot on the grass in the shade of a large, oak tree and left their uniform folded neatly on a nearby bench.

“ _See, this is the arrangement I like. I eat all the good food, and then you work it off,_ ” said Good as Bad did sit-ups with his feet shoved under a thick tree root. Through Bad’s eyes, Good watched the blur of tree, then some sky, then buildings, then playground, and then back the other way. It used to make him dizzy, but he’d long ago gotten used to it. The only sounds came from the light breeze ruffling the branches and leaves of the tree. It was early fall, so the leaves were just starting to change and the air was still warm, but not too hot. Children had recently returned to school, which was why the Cops felt safe going to the park that day instead of just using their exercise equipment at the Tower. The more they could avoid the general public, the better.

“You’re just jealous I can do more than you,” Bad grunted, the strain of it just starting to seep into his voice. He’d already completed quite a few sets, and was only just starting to feel the burn.

“ _I get bored._ ” If Good were out, he would’ve shrugged indifferently. “ _Incoming,_ ” he said a moment later, mentally pointing out a woman and child approaching. The child was only two or three years old, too young to be in school. It was staring at them with wide eyes from its mother’s arms, sucking on its thumb.

“Hello there! Lovely day. Hm, and you look nice.” She faltered a bit when she got close enough to see their badge sitting on top of their uniform. Instead of continuing the small talk, she got quickly to the point. “Could you please tell me where I can find the bus stop? I went around window shopping and seem to have forgotten where I started,” the mother said, smiling too widely. Her too-bright eyes were unnerving, but they were too used to it to look away.

“There,” Bad grunted, pointing at the other side of the park, where a blue sign was just visible on the far sidewalk. He watched as the woman followed his gaze. She hesitated, smile wavering slightly as if she were realizing something wasn’t quite right, but then she looked back at him and her expression snapped back to how it was previously.

“Thank you! Have a great day, officer!” The woman nodded, since she couldn’t wave with the baby in her arms, and headed in that direction.

“ _You forgot to return the compliment,_ ” Good reminded him grimly, though they both knew why she’d seemed confused for that moment, when their badge had been out of her line of sight.

“ _Whatever._ ” Bad went back to his sit-ups, keeping his mind carefully blank.

As the woman walked away, they could hear her talking to her baby, voice squished into a baby-talk voice. “Always root for the local sports team! Always wait patiently when you’re in a line! Always be cooperative with the police! Always wear...!”

4pm: Back to work again

As usual, Good’s begging and cajoling didn’t work. Even older citizens (the married couple were each in their early fifties) were too well programmed to be able to recall much about their old lives. There was only one way to get past all that.

“ _Is this really necessary?_ ” asked Good in what was practically a whisper. He already knew the answer. It was getting harder and harder to find and capture Master Builders, who were hiding out in either the tunnels or Cloud Cuckoo Land. The ones who had hidden in groups in the realms had been gathered up ages ago, leaving their numbers dwindling. Even this one, tiny lead had to be followed, or else Lord Business would be furious.

“Administer the hypnotic,” Bad said to the two white-painted robots, managing to keep his voice even. He kept his eyes averted from the two cushioned tables in the room, on which the husband and wife each lay strapped securely down. He knew from experience that their expressions were empty of fear, completely trusting. They might’ve even been excited from their chance to visit Octan Tower itself, even if they were to only see this one, strange cross between a medical lab and interrogation room. At least they didn’t try to chat with him.

Almost immediately, the ketamine-based mixture kicked in, causing the couple’s eyes to glaze over a bit and their bodies to relax.

“Can-you-tell-me-what-today’s-date-is?” asked one of the robots, the one by the wife. She was more likely to have a strong reaction to the stuff, since she was so thin.

“I don’t… Where am… Huh?” she slurred, blinking confusedly. She finally looked in the direction of the robot, and her eyes widened further. “You’re not…” Her gasps quickened as she started panicking.

Bad closed his eyes. This was going to take a while.

He opened his eyes a moment later to glare at the robot who burst into the room. It had a guard officer’s unit painted onto its body. “Sir! We have a break-in on the twentieth floor! It’s the Master Builder in the panda suit!” Its voice sounded less electronic than lower-level ones.

“Billy? Is Billy here? His dinner’s...getting cold…” said the woman on the table.

Bad spared her a glance, but there was no time to question her. He unclipped the strap on his blaster. “Let’s go.”

Three minutes later, he and the kid were face to face about ten feet away from each other, surrounded by a ring of armed robots. The kid was holding some kind of weapon cobbled together from garbage, pointing it at Bad. He was wearing the panda suit, but had pushed back the masked hood to reveal a young face and dark red hair.

“ _He can’t be more than fifteen,_ ” said Good.

“ _Doesn’t matter,_ ” Bad replied sullenly. “Put the weapon down and surrender, or I’ll have to shoot you,” he barked at the kid.

“Go ahead!” The kid was sobbing. The muzzle of the heavy gun shook along with his body, but his resolve remained steady. He wasn’t going to break. This was suicide.

“Surrender and no harm will come to you,” he said through gritted teeth. He was never very good at lying, but wasn’t about to risk letting Good out. There was no way the kid was going to let up, not after seeing his adoptive parents the other night. They wouldn’t have recognized him, not after five years under Business’s influence.

The kid cried out and shifted the gun, but Bad fired before he could pull the trigger. He switched in just as the kid crumpled to the ground, and Good strode over to check on him. It was a clean shot, in a non-vital area in the shoulder, and the laser blast had stunned him.

“Take him to the Think Tank,” Good ordered as he stepped on the weapon with his metal leg, quickly breaking the thing into little pieces. 

6pm: Have dinner

“ _We did fine work today, buddy,_ ” Good calmly said to his brother. He didn’t get a response.

He went back to buttering his biscuit. After a quick chair beat-down, they’d spent the rest of their day doing paperwork until their stomach growled. They then returned to their living quarters and dressed down in sweatpants and no shirt, too tired to bother with more than that. Other than the hum of the air vents and the scraping of Good’s knife, it was quiet in the room.

“ _We haven’t visited mummy and daddy in a while,_ ” Good said after a little while, polishing off the rest of his steak. At Bad’s pang of guilt, he added more firmly, “ _Let’s go visit on our next day off._ ”

“ _So long as they don’t try bringing some young woman to dinner again,_ ” Bad growled. He was still mortified from last time, which Good couldn’t really tease him for.

“ _You can’t blame them for trying to get some grandchildren outta us. We’re not getting any younger, and Mum’s been dying for a cute little girl to dress up since before we were born._ ”

“ _Didn’t stop her when we were little,_ ” Bad grumbled, but there was of course no bite behind it. They didn’t remember very well, since they’d been a toddler at the time, but they’d seen the pictures. And, more importantly, how happy Ma was when she looked at her photo album.

“ _Maybe if we show up to their place in a dress, it’ll tide her over for a little while,_ ” Good suggested. It was times like this he wished they could transfer mental images to each other, as well as the words and emotions they were already able to hear and sense. He reached across the counter to grab their little notepad and pen and began to draw. “ _Maybe something poofy, with a few bows and frills, like a Middle Zealand princess. Of course, you’d be out, since you blush more and are way cuter about it._ ” He drew a quick face and scumbled a blush.

“ _I am not cute,_ ” Bad huffed cutely. “ _And I am not wearing a dress. Put that away and finish dinner so I can go back to doing paperwork._ ” He didn’t switch out to stop him, though, so Good took his time finishing his drawing.

“ _You are the cuuuuuuutest princess to ever live!_ ” Good crooned, carefully tearing out the drawing and holding it up to grin at it. He was tempted to look in the mirror to see if it was a decent likeness, since neither of them ever really drew them. He decided that might add to the likelihood of Bad tearing up his masterpiece, so refrained. “ _Mummy’ll love this. I’ll have to save it and bring it with us._ ” He nabbed his last hunk of biscuit from his plate and took it with him into the bedroom, grinning so hard it hurt.

“ _Nonononononono!_ ” Bad chanted, nudging at him to try to switch out. “ _At least finish the darn biscuit before you get crumbs all over our sheets!_ ” he added defeatedly.

“ _We might choke,_ ” Good scoffed, but stepped around the bed instead of leaping over it like he’d planned. He tucked the drawing under a hardcover book on top of their dresser to keep it safe and flat until their next day off. “ _There. And if you try to throw it away before next weekend, you know I’ll get you back. Hard._ ”

“ _Fine,_ ” Bad groaned. He stopped trying to switch out. “ _Kick a man while he’s down, why don’tcha. And I’m not cute,_ ” he snapped.

“Suuure, buddy, whatever you say.” Good said out loud before he finished his biscuit and went back to the little kitchen to clear his plate. “Cutie.”

“Shut it already!” Bad switched out to storm over to their laptop. He carried it to their armchair and flopped down, setting the computer on his lap and opening it. It was still open to the report he’d started earlier.

10pm: Go to sleep

It was almost midnight by the time Good finally convinced Bad to stop working and head to bed. Of course, he was only able to because Bad could no longer keep his eyes open, but still.

“ _Honestly, now you’re going to be extra grouchy tomorrow morning,_ ” Good chided as Bad sat on the edge of the bed to detach their leg. “ _No, go do that properly. I’m sick of you forgetting to wash and moisturize. Makes it itch in the morning._ ”

“Whatever,” Bad sighed darkly, but got on the stool to push them into the bathroom. Once that was tended to, he wheeled back, climbed into bed, paused to take their glasses off, and settled in to sleep. “ _‘Night._ ”

“ _Goodnight buddy. I love you._ ”

**Author's Note:**

> Three potential ways to break through brainwashing: pain, drugs, and hypnosis. The first was too hard to figure out (can't leave a mark, can't take too long, and jeez they're innocent civilians!), the third wasn't something I'd see GCBC or the robots doing, and the second was juuuust right.


End file.
